Sacramento earns two spots on Yelp’s best 100 restaurants list

Sacramento’s dining scene hasn’t made a mark with Michelin, but it’s getting some help from Yelp.

For the first time, Yelp.com has complied its list of 100 best places to eat in America, and two well-regarded Sacramento restaurants have made the cut: The Kitchen (No. 30) and Cafe Rolle (No. 36).

Yelp’s rankings are based on reviews from the site’s millions of users. They take “into account both star rating and number of reviews to reveal which spots not only have top-notch ratings, but also which are most popular in the Yelp community,” according to the company. They also reflect a crunching of the site’s “rich wealth of data,” using a technique called the Wilson Score.

Rankings from Internet companies are a dime a terabyte these days, but what makes Yelp’s list compelling is its intriguing high-low sensibility. Sure, haute cuisine is represented, but so are more, shall we say, democratic establishments that Yelpers seem to love, including taco, barbecue and pho joints.

That explains why The French Laundry, often cited as one of the best restaurants in the U.S., landed between The Kitchen and Cafe Rolle at No. 34. It also explains how Da Poke Shack, a tiny seafood spot on Hawaii’s Big Island – known for its raw tuna, seaweed and kimchi – earned the No. 1 position.

Also worth noting: 46 of the 100 eateries on the list are located in California, which could suggest a certain concentration of Yelp users. Or maybe nearly half the country’s best restaurants really do reside in the Golden State.